Fractal Define R6 Review

Up Close: Exterior

It's very rare for us to take a picture of the case as we're getting it out of the box, but on this occasion we felt it warranted it. Why? Because first impressions are important, and the Define R6 sets a good one, even by just giving us a glimpse of its underbelly.

With the R6 out of its protective wrappings we can see what a beaut it is. The sleekness of the case may not appeal to everyone, and especially those who still crave high airflow over intelligent cooling, but there's no denying the underlying quality. The real stand out feature here is the full size tempered glass panel, not just because it looks good, but because fractal have found a way of attaching it which doesn't require the use of over-sized thumb bolts going through the glass in each corner. As a result it looks how we think tempered glass side panels should always have looked, but as yet, never really have.

The right hand side of the case is kept nice an plain, and as you might expect has heavy sound and vibration dampening material added to its inner surface.

At the top edge we find the front I/O which benefits from seperate power and reset buttons, along with HD audio and 2,USB3.0, and 2xUSB2.0.

Air inlet into the front of the case by horizontal slits which run the full height of the case on both sides.

The R6 has a hinged front door, which as you can see also has a sound and vibration lining. The door is hinged on the left, but this can be swapped over by the user or system builder. With the door open we can see that it's hiding a pair of 140mm fans.

Behind a grill, and also, a 5.25" drive bay. Now, this might seem a bizarre inclusion, but there are still some out there that use 5.25" devices, and with a case that has this much water cooling capability, its inclusion does also perhaps nod towards bay reservoirs. Don't worry though, if it offends your sensibilities, it can be easily removed.

The rear of the case is a pretty standard ATX affair, with a 140mm white bladed fan on extract duty. The eagle eyed among you will perhaps have noticed the round protuberance at the top left hand corner and, perhaps, maybe even wondered what it was. Well, wonder no more, it's actually a button, the depression of which releases the smooth roof panel. clever stuff eh!

The lower half of the case rear shows that we have seven expansion slots, with an additional two for vertically mounting expansion cards such as GPUs into the popular "show off" position. As the PSU is slid in from the rear, the PSU area has a detachable cover plate.

The underside of the case is basically one big mesh ventilation area, with a single filter covering the whole lot, which is slid out from the front. The R6 also stands on four of the most simple yet beautiful case feet we think we've ever seen, and we've seen so many case feet that it would make a case feet fetishist feel fantastic.

Most Recent Comments

Things i like:
-All that Fractal white...
-White bezels on the glass. So many manufacturers (Lian Li, NZXT) just put black bezels on white cases. Not good. Thank you Fractal for not cheeping out on that.
-Modular front part. You can have R or S beautiful.

Epic fails:
-What is going on with the top? Why put that monstrosity there? Why eat up top radiator space? Just make it like Define S and give it magnetic filter in the box, and make moduvent from metal. No need for that bulky thing. You could have saved a lot of money from pintless tooling.
-Front.. OMG! Why put stupid CD drive bay and waste such a good case. Tom you said you wanted to mod that vent mesh onto it. Imagine white Meshify front on this one. I am getting funny feeling in my pants only by thinking about it.

Because of that transformer front thingy i assume that there wont be a new Define S. This is kinda both. All i think about now is how to bash metal mesh with a hammer just to make that front panel look good.

Every single review i saw of Meshify C was "How masterful is that front?!" and every comment was "Where is Meshify S?". And this case could be that one. And what does Fractal do? Slab a big BLACK metal plate on white case only to have CD drive bay in which you probably can't put ROG DAC, or Fan controller because the door wouldn't close over the knob. If there was no CD drive bay there would be no point for a door. And we could have white Meshyfy R5. Are you reading this Fractal???

I know R series was your most popular case. But that was decades ago. When we had 80GB HDDs and we needed 10 bays in the front so we can install games and have music on our system. And we needed CD drive bays, because internet was slow and games came in small plastic boxes. Cmon Fractal...

Tom please give me a hint if there will be Meshify S. I wont tell. PM me.Quote

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